The differentiation of authority: the medieval turn toward existence

6. Continental Problems in Political Order

179 6 Continental Problems in Political Order Existential authority was the new civilizational factor with which both political and spiritual institutional authorities had to grapple. The problem for the church was the rise of heretical new pieties outside the traditional orthodoxy which will be examined in the next chapter. However , the problem that the political authorities had to face was the management of individual personal assertions which presented a potential threat to the like-mindedness of society and the legitimacy of political power in general. We have seen how the English realm drew the variety of movements and estates into a process of political articulation for the sake of the common good. Perhaps due to the older imperial and royal traditions on the Continent—or more precisely, an older civil theology steeped in the Gelasian doctrine and the expectation of a sacrum imperium —driving a constitutional process of articulation was not a realistic possibility. Put simply, in the new climate of existential assertiveness, political authority could respond in one of two ways: either by the channeling of existential authority in constitutionalism or by subordinating it beneath the weight of absolute power. In this chapter, various political responses such as authority in the 180 Continental Problems empire, the kingdoms, and the principalities will be examined, principally to highlight the central political problem: their failure to realize the polity as a “political people.” This problem is, of course, more than merely political. It is a problem that is indicative of a shifting civil theology that was replete with the meaningful action of individuals and their free associations, meaningful action based on an existential authority that had not been recognized as a legitimate force in the polity. In large part, the response of royal authority was to claim absolute jurisdiction over the sphere of the existential. The crisis in civil theology was very pronounced in the upper tier of public institutions. Failing to adequately symbolize a civil theology that was shifting toward the authoritative assertion of human existence in the lower tier of persons and groups, the exercise of potestas was concentrated on expanding authority beyond the political. As in earlier times, medieval political authority sought to overlap its zone of control with a sphere that did not belong within its competence. The difference in the later Middle Ages is that these nonpolitical spheres were not necessarily ecclesiastical, but primarily existential. There were often bloody results. Berman states that upheavals on a revolutionary level are inevitably outcomes when public institutions of authority lose their existential grounding. They “proved incapable of responding, in time to the changes that were taking place in society.... [If] the inevitable had been anticipated and necessary fundamental changes had been made within the pre-existing legal order ... then the revolution would presumably have been avoided. To change in time is the key to the vitality of any legal system that confronts irresistible pressure for change.”1 That medieval civilization was in a state of grave upheaval is evident from the growing absolutism of political institutions. Frederick II and the Constitutions of Melfi (1231) Frederick II was Holy Roman Emperor and king of Sicily. Cantor paints this picture of him: Frederick was a strange man, the “wonder of the world,” who seemed to stand outside the moral order of his day.... [He was] a great soldier, a patron of the 1. Berman, Law and Revolution, 21. Continental Problems 181 arts and sciences, the author of a formidable treatise on falconry. But he was a megalomaniac who considered himself beyond the ethical standards of Latin Christianity. It is appropriate that Frederick was idolized by the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s.... Frederick II was a sort of intellectual Fascist, a man of learning and fastidious tastes, but a brute and a bully nevertheless.2 A man of formidable character who had his hands on the levers of power , Frederick was a thorn in the side of his enemies, but received the adulation of many more. He is important for our purposes in that his actions , which dominated a large part of the thirteenth century, carried a meaning that illuminates the growing crisis of his time. The Disappearance of the Individual The historical instance of Frederick II provides a counterweight to the existential shift in medieval civilization. Frederick’s Constitutions of Melfi (1231) contain sentiments and symbolism that suggest a lingering aspiration for a sacrum imperium with its imperial and...